Map it Out & Orienteering

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Five Maps That Will Change How You See the World. Boston public schools recently announced that they will shift to using world maps based on the Peters projection, reportedly the first time a US public school district has done so.

Why? Because the Peters projection accurately shows different countries’ relative sizes. Although it distorts countries’ shapes, this way of drawing a world map avoids exaggerating the size of developed nations in Europe and North America and reducing the size of less developed countries in Asia, Africa and South America.
Areas of Europe Compared To US States With Equal GDP & Corresponding Cities - MoverDB.com. Map created by reddit user Speech500 The map above shows different areas of Europe that are equal in terms of GDP to a given American state, along with cities that also correspond in terms of importance (based on population).

For example, Texas’ GDP is just over 50% of the UK’s GDP ($1.4 Trillion USD vs $2.7 Trillion USD) and the most populous city in Texas is Houston, while the most populous city in the UK is London.
European Languages According To The Dutch. Percentage of Europeans Who Are Willing To Fight A War For Their Country. Map created by reddit user Spartharios The map above shows the percentage of residents in various European countries who are willing to fight and go to war for their country.

Full results below:
US States Overlaid On Areas of Europe With Equal Population - MoverDB.com. Map created by reddit user Speech500 The map above shows how the population of various US states compares with certain regions of Europe.

For example, Wales has a population of around 3 million people, which is roughly the same as the US state of Utah. The map is interesting because it shows just how densely populated Europe is in many places. For example, you could fit the entire population of California (38.8 million & the most populous state) in Southern England, despite the fact that California is around 70,000 sq miles (180,000 sq km) larger than the entire United Kingdom.
16 Best Maps of 2016. Now that 2016 is finally over, we thought it would be fun to look back at our most popular maps from last year.

(We did the same thing for the Top 15 Maps of 2015 last year.) The maps below are ranked on the number of visitors each received in 2016. As you’ll see some are older posts that got a second lease on life, while most are brand new to 2016.
Six maps that show the anatomy of America’s vast infrastructure - Washington Post. The Shortest Route for Seeing Nearly 50,000 Historic Places in One Trip. 173Share2 The U.S. has a treasure trove of historic sites to visit, but geography makes it nearly impossible to visit them all in one trip—or does it?

Led by University of Waterloo professor William Cook, a team of researchers used Google Maps and the famous “traveling salesman" mathematics problem to figure out the shortest route to see every single site on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, as Travel + Leisure reports. The trip covers more than 217,605 miles and includes more than 49,600 sites, ending back at the original starting point. To put that into context: the distance from Earth to the Moon is 238,900 miles. Even with hundreds of University of Waterloo computers working on the problem, solving it took four international researchers two years. If you don’t have enough time to visit every single historic building, home, landmark, and monument on the list, the researchers did put together region-specific versions of the tour, too. [h/t Travel + Leisure]
Finally, a World Map That Doesn't Lie - D-brief. The AuthaGraph world map.

Our maps have been lying to us for centuries. The standard classroom maps we all learned geography from are based on the Mercator projection, a 16th century rendering that preserved lines used for navigation while hideously distorting the true sizes of continents and oceans further from the equator. The result is a widespread misconception that Greenland is as big as Africa, Siberia and Canada are disproportionally massive, and that Antarctica apparently just goes on forever. (Credit: Daniel R. Strebe/Wikimedia Commons) In reality though, Africa is larger than all of North America, and the Antarctic is about as big as Australia. No Accurate Maps For centuries, cartographers have made numerous attempts to account for the inconsistency.
US Power Plant Primary Energy Source by 3 Digit Zip Code – MetricMaps.

Baghdad Before & After 2006-2007 Sectarian Violence. Original maps created by Dr.

Michael Izady via Gulf/2000 The two maps above show the impact sectarian violence had on Baghdad’s neighbourhoods in terms of ethnic composition between 2006 and 2007. The green sections above show Shi’a majority areas (70% of Iraq’s population), red are Sunni majority areas (32% of Iraq’s population & the group Saddam Hussein belonged to), blue are Christian majority areas (5% of Iraq’s population) and yellow are mixed areas where no majority exists. The striking thing about the map is of course the loss of mixed areas in favour of Shi’a and Sunni majority areas.

Interestingly, Christian majority areas remained largely unchanged.
Spread of the Words For Tea & Coffee Around the World - MoverDB.com. 2nd Largest Nationality Living In Each European Country. Map by reddit user JimWillFixIt69 The map above shows the flag of the 2nd largest nationality, by country of birth, living in each European country.

Thus, it may include citizens and those who have moved temporarily for work. Nevertheless, there are many surprises, such as:
The Genetic Map Of Europe. Map created by eupedia.com The map above, created by eupedia.com, shows the genetic makeup of European countries based on Haplogroups.

These groups each share a common ancestor and can be one way of looking at the genetic makeup of a population. In humans, haplogroups can either be based on Y-DNA which is passed from father to son or mtDNA which is passed from mother to offspring of both sexes. The map above is only based on Y-DNA, thus only shows male common ancestors not female ones. Moreover, it should obviously not be used to imply that any country is better than any other.
Percentage of Young Adults In Europe, aged 25-34, Who Still Live With Their Parents. Map created by reddit user Bezbojnicul The map above shows how many young European adults (25-34) still live at home with their parents. Not surprisingly, there are large North-South and East-West divides. These can likely be explained for two reasons. First, Mediterranean countries, such as Italy and Greece, have strong family focused societies that don’t have the same stigmas attached to living at home with your parents once you’re an adult.

Second, the financial crisis is likely also partially responsible, since countries that were hit the hardest also saw the biggest rise in those living with their parents.
Map Of The Town of Springfield From The Simpsons. Map created by Jerry Lerma and Terry Hogan The map above shows the town of Springfield from the Simpsons. It was created by Jerry Lerma and Terry Hogan (with the link to their website sadly no longer working) and states it was last revised on May 26th 2004. This suggests the map is only accurate up to the end of season 15 (the show is currently on season 27). Nevertheless, it includes all (or at least most) of the Simpsons classic locations such as:
Roman City of Londinium Around AD 200. London: Roman Londinium Map Created by Britannica Online for Kids.
Where North Korea Has Embassies & Who Has Embassies in North Korea.

Countries Where North Korea Has Embassies: created by Avala via Wikimedia While North Korea (officially: Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; DPRK) remains one of the world’s most isolated states, it does have numerous embassies in many countries around the world also hosts many foreign embassies in Pyongyang. The map above shows which countries host a North Korean embassy, with the map below showing which countries have embassies in North Korea: Who Has Embassies in North Korea: created by Aquintero82 via Wikimedia Countries with a resident embassy in Pyongyang and who also host a North Korean Embassy: Brazil Bulgaria Cambodia China Cuba Czech Republic Egypt Germany India Indonesia Iran Laos Malaysia Mongolia Nigeria Pakistan Poland Romania Russia Sweden Syria United Kingdom Vietnam Countries that host a resident North Korean Embassy but do not have an embassy in Pyongyang: Countries that have an embassy in Pyongyang but which do not host a North Korean Embassy Palestine.

TeleGeography's gorgeous map of the global Internet.
Each year, a telecom market research firm called TeleGeography releases a map of the underwater cables that connect the global Internet. Past years’ maps have been merely fascinating. This year’s is flat-out gorgeous.
Harmonia Macrocosmica — History's Most Beautiful Star Maps. The Harmonia Macrocosmica is a star atlas written by Andreas Cellarius and published in 1660 by Johannes Janssonius. The Harmonia Macrocosmica is a star atlas written by Andreas Cellarius and published in 1660 by Johannes Janssonius.

The Incredible Shrinking Aral Sea 1960-2014. Thin underwater cables hold the internet. See a map of them all.
Map of The UK's Electricity Supply System Network Grid. Nuclear Vs Non-Nuclear Powered Countries: 2016 Facts. The map above shows which countries have operating commercial nuclear power stations and which ones do not as of April, 2016. At last count, 31 countries generate at least some of their electricity needs via nuclear power.

Here are 13 interesting facts about these countries and nuclear power.
The Pan American Highway: The Longest Road In The World. At its fullest extent the Pan-American Highway is a network of roads stretching from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina, a distance of around 48,000 kilometres (30,000 miles).
Map of The Unexplored World From 1881. An Incredibly Detailed Map of the Roman Empire At Its Height in 211AD. Map of The Soviet Gulag Archipelago 1923-1961. Soviet World War 3 Plans For Europe. Relatively Interesting Famous journeys of discovery - Relatively Interesting. Top 15 Best Maps Of 2015 (Plus 10 Honourable Mentions)
Detailed seafloor gravity map brings the Earth's surface into sharp focus. Top 15 Best Maps Of 2015 (Plus 10 Honourable Mentions)
Where Americans Are Killed By Guns: US Homicide & Suicide Death Rates.

15 Years Of Terror - Map Of Terrorist Incidents Since 2000. Plague Pits in London. London’s Plague Pits Map Shows Where the Black Death Got Buried. Relatively Interesting North American Cities Transposed Onto Europe at the Same Latitude (and vice versa) - Relatively Interesting. Brilliant Maps - Making Sense Of The World, One Map At A Time.